1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to the use of instruments for guiding preparation of a knee for resection, as well as for guiding preparation of a knee for installation of an implant during an arthroplasty procedure. In particular, the present invention is related to a system for guiding a milling tool along a specific axis to provide an aperture of a desired depth, prior to resection.
2. Background and Related Art
During a knee arthroplasty, a surgeon typically must gain access to the knee joint in order to perform resections of existing bone and cartilage so as to shape the tibia and femur to fit mating surfaces of the implant. This shaping is initiated by making resection cuts to the knee joint either by referencing off the femur or off the tibia. The accuracy and precision of the resection cuts greatly affects the quality of the arthroplasty procedure. Therefore, extreme caution is used in planning executing the resection cuts based on the chosen reference.
Femoral cuts are typically easier to make in surgery because the femur is easily exposed and accessible. Also, many techniques exist to open the knee and expose the femur in a relatively non-invasive manner. Once the femoral cuts have been made, the tibia is better exposed and accessible for the tibial cuts.
While preparing the femur first is more convenient and relatively non-invasive, ideal femoral cuts are referenced off a prepared tibia. However, complete preparation of the tibia is hindered by overlapping portions of the femur. With the knee in flexion, there is always access to the central part of the tibia; however this exposure is insufficient to completely prepare the tibia.
It would therefore be advantageous to have instrumentation for sufficiently preparing the tibia for use as a reference to make the femoral resections. It would be further advantageous if the instrumentation was capable of interchangeable use with other necessary instrumentation. Finally, it would be advantageous to have instrumentation that could access and sufficiently prepare the tibia in a relatively non-evasive manner.